07/05/2007

Daily Glean: Clinton is Nevada's to do with as we please

If anybody knows anybody in the grown-up national media, call them and tell them that Hillary Clinton's campaign, stupidly, perhaps, has allowed expectations of her performance in the Nevada caucus to run wildly amok (LVRJ). The state now has to be considered a contest she not only must win, but win convincingly, and a stumble here could spell nothing less than her wholesale collapse in New Hampshire and beyond.

Local AP reporter Kathleen Hennessey writes another one of those stories about Nevada written to be read by people elsewhere. This time, the rest of the world is duly notified that the alleged War Party prez caucus in Nevada has yet to broaden its existence beyond the confines of the small but disturbing pretend-world inhabited by Eric Herzik and Chuck Muth.

The editorial page at the Arkansas company's flagship cash cow flips its flop. Oh, they can say that a fine will have to be paid, and so justice is being done. But everybody knows what they're really talking about is granting amnesty. LVRJ

Lashing out at California in revenge for sending it all those illegal Mexicans, Pahrump is the leading provider of illegal fireworks that end up getting smuggled over California's broken borders. LATimes

Blame the press, says member of the press (Smith/LVRJ). The chumminess between sources and reporters is a profound problem the world over — reporters and TV talking heads try to be part of the in-crowd, and next thing you know we're in the middle of a civil war on the other side of the world for no good reason, because questioning conventional wisdom within the polite media-political milieu would have been bad form. And sure, on the local front, Smith is right to chide his area colleagues for getting too cozy with the beat. But he's missing the bigger problem with media 'round here: namely, the Nevada journalism industry is is too damned cheap, as exemplified ingloriously by the incessant obsession with counting of beans on the part of Smith's publisher, one Sherman Frederick. It's pretty hard for reporters to uncover bribes from Strip club operators to county commissioners (which is why feds, not reporters, uncovered it) when the newspaper of record assigns one reporter, maybe two on occasion, to the county beat. And it doesn't help that the paper's editors harbor a profound hostility to enterprise reporting, unless it is to blow the lid off an explosive micro-scandal involving a bureaucrat using a government cell phone to call the babysitter.

Doctor Green on how the U.S. Supreme Court just eliminated what the Revolutionaries fought for, and what it means to Nevada. NVToday

How encouraging to read that geezers love spending their retirement doing shit work for a nickel-ninety-eight because it gets them out of the house (Sun). And here we thought all those oldsters selling cigarettes to minors at 7-11 were there because they were trying to make ends meet.

"Coalition of the Billing" - That's RIGHT ON! Good catch "Texex" - of course, they are "The Willing to do the Billing" and it's really important to them keep this reckless, unethical, immoral, illegal Unjust War in Iraq going on, and on, and on (so, they can meet or exceed their quarterly profit projections)!

"Gleaner" on top of the heat in Bagdhad, our soliders are bearing anywhere between 60 and 80 pounds of gear, and if that isn't enough stress - people are trying to kill them (which is always, at the very least, diconcerting)!

And the Vets have to listen to civilians whining and sniveling about minor, common, mundane, everyday challenges like, "Oh, damn, I've got to chug my Starbuck Ice Coffee before it melts!" Or, "Damn, the leather in my SUV is getting hot and sticky!"